Ethics chief resigns from state attorney’s office in midst of Jussie Smollett scrutiny, and she’s not the only one

In the wake of the Jussie Smollett scandal, several members of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office have turned in their resignations, including her chief spokesperson.

On Friday the Chicago Tribune confirmed that chief spokesperson Kiera Ellis, who’d formally served as the office’s director of external affairs, has already left, while two other officials — chief ethics officer April Perry and conviction integrity unit director Mark Rotart — are on their way out.

While Perry is reportedly leaving to accept a job at a tech startup, it’s unclear why Ellis and Rotart are exiting the company. Some suspect it’s because of the growing PR crisis facing the office.

Earlier this week the office released thousands of internal text messages and emails in response to a public records request previously filed by Tribune. These damning texts showed, among other things, that Foxx appeared to have believed Smollett deserved to have charges dropped against him because he was an irrelevant, washed-up celebrity who’d merely lied to the police.

Moreover, despite informally recusing herself from Smollett’s case because of a conflict of interest, she’d continued to interfere by, as an example, chiding the lead prosecutor, Joseph Magats, for having filed 16 charges against the Hollywood actor. To her, the charges were “excessive.”

Then roughly two-and-a-half weeks after Foxx complained to Magats about the charges, the lead prosecutor dropped every single one, thus letting Smollett off scot-free.

Allegations of impropriety have also surfaced regarding the case of Jedidiah Brown, an anti-cop activist accused of assaulting several Chicago police officers. Foxx is overseeing his case as well, despite Brown having served on her 2015 election campaign, and despite the activist having appeared at a press conference that Foxx had held earlier this month about the Smollett case.

“Foxx welcomed Brown on stage at a press conference on April 6, 2019,” PJ Media reported. “In that press conference, Foxx defended her office’s decision to drop the 16 felony counts against Empire star Jussie Smollett, who allegedly lied to the police in a hate hoax.”

Brown later posted pics of himself to Facebook posing with Foxx at the aforementioned presser:

Caption this for me family… I want to know what this looks like to you in context to what were dealing with.
#istandwithkimforreal

On Thursday eight officers with the Chicago Police Department reportedly asked that a special prosecutor be assigned for the Brown case given Foxx’s clear-cut conflict of interest.

“State’s Attorney Foxx is seen standing in unity with this criminal defendant, along with other anti-police activists Ja’Mal Green, Bobby Rush and Flint Taylor. Worse she is seen talking to Mr. Brown and later poses for a photograph with Mr. Brown for him to post on his Facebook page,” the officers’ lawyer, James McKay Jr, wrote in a petition filed this week.

“This is not right. The guy’s got a criminal case pending. A prosecutor has the duty to avoid the slightest appearance of impropriety. Not be with him. Period. It’s just improper,” he added in a statement to Fox News.

Brown was arrested on felony charges of aggravated battery for kicking and bunching two on-duty officers during some sort of protest last summer. However, Foxx’s team chose to reject the felony charges. Instead he was charged with two counts of lesser misdemeanor battery. These charges carry significantly less potential punishment than the original felony charges.

According to McKay’s petition, the cops whom Brown attacked weren’t even the first to learn about Brown’s charges being dropped. Instead Foxx told Brown and his buddies first:

“In an unusual timing of events, a close associate of Jedidiah Brown, and another anti-police activist, Lamon Reccord, announced on his Facebook Live page that felony charges against Mr. Brown had been rejected by Ms. Foxx’ office … before Petitioners knew that felony charges had been rejected.”

Requests for a special prosecutor to be assigned in the Smollett Case have also been filed.

“Two separate petitions have been filed in Cook County for a special prosecutor to investigate the case, and President Trump says he’s asked for a federal review,” Fox has confirmed.

The unanimous consensus among a growing body of people, including the Fraternal Order of Police members who showed up outside Foxx’s office earlier this month to protest — is that she’s a corrupt prosecutor who needs to be removed from office and perhaps even prosecuted herself:

Speaking with The Daily Caller this week, Martin Preib, the vice president of the Fraternal Order of Police’s Chicago chapter, expressed his belief that Foxx’s actions in the case were illegal.

“It was a very bizarre action by Kim Foxx,” he said. “It was arbitrary. Nothing seems right about it. We don’t think it was legal. We do think she was obligated to appoint a special prosecutor. I just think there’s so much more to this that needs to be dug into.”

“This is one of many things that we’ve been very strongly opposed to her administration. And we think this is part of a pattern, so it’s not just this one issue we’re talking about,” he added.

Foxx does indeed have a habit of “deferring” charges and dropping cases. When Foxx first took office, she let a convicted killer off the hook, according to an investigation by local station WLS.